If you're familiar with the life of a Hobbit, you'll notice a very strict eating schedule: First breakfast, Second breakfast, "Elevensies", Lunch, they never forget to take time out to receive this most basic form of nourishment. Apparently, they have fast metabolisms; but it's uncanny how similar the eating habits of a Hobbit are to the prayer rhythm of the Liturgy of the Hours. I don't know if Tolkien meant it to come across this way, but Hobbits eat like monks pray.

It's a struggle, but my hope is to pray like Hobbits eat. Through the tremendous gift of baptism, I now participate in something so far beyond anything I could ever deserve. I can't even fully comprehend the reality. Nevertheless, it's true. As St. Peter said, I've been made a "sharer in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). The life of Christ - that is, God! - is living in me now. He lives through me, through my actions... at least, that's the idea. But that life needs to be fed.Have you ever been too busy to pray? Have you ever found yourself so overwhelmed by an upcoming event or project that you forgot to take time for prayer?I do it all the time. I get so preoccupied with my part in things, that I lose sight of the fact that I'm never expected to do any of this alone. He, Jesus, wants to do everything, even my part. That's what communion - living a life in Christ - is all about (see Galatians 2:20). Christian life is a living participation in Jesus' saving work.

Church teaching sums it up well:

"God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace." (CCC 2008)

Without prayer, I cut myself off from the vine, as it were. The Catechism offers the simplest yet most profound definition of prayer I've ever heard. "Prayer is Christian insofar as it is communion with Christ and extends throughout the Church, which is his Body," and (I love this last part) "it's dimensions are those of Christ's love" (CCC 2565).

We've been given a part to play in the redemption of the world. Prayer keeps us rooted in a life of grace, connected to the source of divine life and living in the mission. It keeps us in communion with the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. It's the wellspring of the Holy Spirit. If we're too busy to pray, we're either doing more than God asks of us, or, and this is more likely the case, we're doing exactly what God wants...but on our own, without proper nourishment.

The Christian life - thanks to baptism - is a work of love. But it's God's work. The moment we find we're too busy to pray is precisely the time to stop, just for a moment, and say a quick prayer. The more open we are to grace, the more effective our own efforts become. "Man does not live on bread alone" (Matthew 4:4), and yet I always have time to eat. May his grace help us all to live a little less like Hobbits and a little more like monks.